The northern side rests on confused ranges, running with a general direction of east to west, and known in the aggregate as the Vindhya mountains. The Vindhyas, however, are made up of several distinct hill systems. Two sacred peaks guard the flanks in the extreme east and west, with a succession of ranges stretching 800 m. between. At the western extremity, Mount Abu, famous for its exquisite Jain temples, rises, as a solitary outpost of the Aravalli hills 5650 ft. above the Rajputana plain, like an island out of the sea. On the extreme east, Mount Parasnath--like Mount Abu on the extreme west, sacred to Jain rites--rises to 4400 ft. above the level of the Gangetic plains. The various ranges of the Vindhyas, from 1500 to over 4000 ft. high, form, as it were, the northern wall and buttresses which support the central table-land. Though now pierced by road and railway, they stood in former times as a barrier of mountain and jungle between northern and southern India, and formed one of the main obstructions to welding the whole into an empire. They consist of vast masses of forests, ridges and peaks, broken by cultivated valleys and broad high-lying plains.
The other two sides of the elevated southern triangle are known as the Eastern and Western Ghats. These start southwards from the eastern and western extremities of the Vindhya system, and run along the eastern and western coasts of India. The Eastern Ghats stretch in fragmentary spurs and ranges down the Madras presidency, here and there receding inland and leaving broad level tracts between their base and the coast. The Western Ghats form the great sea-wall of the Bombay presidency, with only a narrow strip between them and the shore. In many parts they rise in magnificent precipices and headlands out of the ocean, and truly look like colossal "passes or landing-stairs" (_gháts_) from the sea. The Eastern Ghats have an average elevation of 1500 ft. The Western Ghats ascend more abruptly from the sea to an average height of about 3000 ft. with peaks up to 4700, along the Bombay coast, rising to 7000 and even 8760 in the upheaved angle which they unite to form with the Eastern Ghats, towards their southern extremity.